The Initial Operational Clearance-II of the aircraft will be done on December 20 at its home-base in Bangalore after which it will be inducted into the IAF by Defence Minister AK Antony.

After a delay of over two decades and several cost overruns, the indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas will be inducted in the IAF later this month in Bangalore.

The under development aircraft achieved another significant milestone Saturday with the launching of an infrared seeking air-to-air missile that hit the target with precision and destroyed the target, a DRDO statement said. The test, demonstrating required parameters was conducted off the coast of Goa in Arabian Sea, and has taken the aircraft closer to its induction in the Indian Air Force.

A file photo of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas.

Tejas, a one-of-its-kind combat aircraft, has been developed by DRDO with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) as the lead laboratory and HAL as the production partner. Avinash Chander, Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence (R&D), congratulating the team, said "with this launch of a missile from Tejas and successfully hitting the target in the first shot, we have demonstrated the total weapon system capability of LCA Tejas".

Tejas has been undergoing weapon release flight tests for its operational clearance. As a prelude on Saturday, Group Captain Suneet Krishna, flying the Tejas aircraft commanded Infrared seeker missiles through the fire control radar of the aircraft to lock on to the target. The target was towed by a Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA) Lakshya, also designed and developed by DRDO's another premier lab, Aeronautics Development Establishment (ADE). The target mounted on Lakshya was launched by the Indian Navy off the west coast of India. A team from the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC), Aeronautical Development Agency, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, ADE (DRDO), CEMILAC, DGAQA and the Indian Navy worked in perfect unison to achieve this feat.

The Initial Operational Clearance-II of the aircraft will be done on December 20 at its home-base in Bangalore after which it will be inducted into the IAF by Defence Minister AK Antony. The aircraft will be the LCA Mark 1 and 40 of them will be inducted by the IAF and the DRDO and HAL will continue to make improvements in it and that more powerful and capable version would be inducted later in the force, they said.

The IAF, if everything moves ahead as per the present plans, will have a total of seven squadrons of such aircraft which comes to about 140 aircraft.

The aircraft project was sanctioned in 1983 at a cost of Rs 560 crore, the project will be completed exactly 30 years after it was launched at an approximate overall cost of around Rs 25,000 crore. Even after its induction into the IAF, the aircraft will undergo several tests in the force and will have to attain the Final Operational Clearance (FOC) for getting ready for full operational deployment.